


Crawl

by LelithSugar



Series: Bloodied Up  - the 'Perverts in Love' Consensual!AU Thramsay [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BDSM, Beating, Cake, Consensual Kink, Consensual Violence, Fluff and Smut, Gloves, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Pokers, Public Humiliation, Smut, Spanking, if you think this has a happy ending... it does well done you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 17:54:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9335933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LelithSugar/pseuds/LelithSugar
Summary: Theon pays a hefty price for not quite obeying his master's orders, and loves every moment of it.Canon-divergent AU in which what we see of Ramsay and Theon's relationship in ASOIAF/GoT is an elaborate cover for a consensual BDSM relationship.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Crib notes for the au setting: in this series, briefly, the whole bloody mess of the canon story is a cover for the fact that Ramsay and Theon discovered upon meeting that they were a highly compatible pair of perverts and ran with it; the version presented in Game of Thrones is a kind of 'Chinese whispers' account put together from stories around the Dreadfort which are absolutely encouraged by our bonkers young pair because it affords them the luxury not only of maintaining their relationship in plain sight but of being able to get off on all manner of public weirdness without anyone daring to question it. Ahh, young love. What are you gonna do, right?
> 
> Unbetaed and with thanks to SurgeryRiley and Emphysematous.

 

In other kitchens, in other castles, the sight of a beaten man who had once been an honoured guest crawling in on his hands and knees would have warranted – and received – a far more urgent reaction. But this was the Dreadfort: its young lord had made some sort of special project of torturing Theon Greyjoy to breaking point, and it would take a very particular sort of gallant idiot to attempt to intervene. And the war had gone through all the gallant idiots like a warm knife through butter.

So, eyes were averted and voices dropped as Theon crawled to the fireplace, exactly as Ramsay had instructed him, and began to look for what he'd been sent for. Well, perhaps not _exactly_. There had been a few choice comments about 'offering his backside' to people and 'wriggling like a bitch in heat' which Theon suspected Ramsay had thrown in for the pure joy of saying them and as such was fairly confident he wasn't expected to actually comply with. The groveling around, on the other hand... he had entered into this game quite willingly. There was no fun in cheating.

“Do you need something, pet?” The homely cook's voice dripped with motherly concern and trailed off into a cringe at her own choice of phrasing, which intensified as 'Reek' simply stuttered a couple of half syllables and pointed to the bucket of fire irons he'd been making his way towards.

“I.... I only need the one. The right one. I... Thank you. I'll fetch it myself.” Theon made sure to keep his eyes on the floor even when he burned to see the reactions of the kitchen staff. He politely but frantically brushed away the hands that moved to help him or encourage him to stand as he made his way over to the hearth, and did his best impression of a rabbit in a trap as he was manhandled onto the stool next to the fireplace with shushes and insistances that nobody would tell Lord Ramsay that he'd accepted the comfort. He also clattered the bucket a little as he went through the tools in it carfeully, just so nobody could fail to notice that he'd been sent there to choose and carry the implements of his own torture.

There were in fact at least three rooms between the South Tower's master bedroom and the kitchens that had hearths and thus would have pokers, but what none of those had was an audience. Theon laid the poker he'd drawn fron the bunch across his shaking legs, wondered if the staff assembled in the kitchen were currently imagining the miriad horrendous and possibly wonderful things Ramsay might be planning to do to him with it, and gave an involuntary shudder.

He couldn't help being a whore for the threat and humiliation that Ramsay meted out on him... he was just too fucking good at it. The way the fort's inhabitants all looked at im - saw him owned, taken, used and branded - thrilled him to the core, and the necessity that he maintain the role of terrified obedience, playing to their fear of their lord's famously unhinged bastard son only made it more delicious. He was a good actor too. He just had to make absolutely sure never to picture the look on Ramsay's face the first time Theon had managed to get a fourth oiled finger inside of him, or the night he'd caught him sucking his thumb in his sleep.

The sympathy vote had its perks as well. His missions down to the kitchens usually resulted in little treats and this trip was no exception: as he sat and thawed his joints by the fire, a particularly soft natured – and evidently dim witted – cook's hand took pity on poor Theon's miserable existence and palmed a barely-stale lemon cake from a tray destined for visiting heralds' quarters into a bowl on the floor for him.

_Low blooded morons, the lot of them_. Did they not think Ramsay would smell that on him in a heartbeat? If he was really as bad as they thought, did they not realise what would happen to him?People in the Dreadfort had lost limbs over less. Then again, perhaps that was the sort of entertainment they were really after... perhaps he and Ramsay were the only sane ones left.

He ate it, alright. Theon hadn't so much as seen a lemon cake since the first time he'd left Winterfell, and the stares of ghoulish fascination he felt pricking into his back as he took careful and so obviously well practiced bites from the bowl were a secondary joy only to the reaction he knew it would earn him from Ramsay. The taste was of warm weather and childhood and other distant things: sweet and a little stale, nowehere near as good in practicality as memory painted them, but he savoured the sugar nonetheless. He'd be paying for it later and that was what he was really looking forward to. He savoured the hushed murmurs he could only gather were about him without hearing the words, wondering who was as apalled as they purported to be by the sight of him on all fours, backside in the air, eating from a bowl on the floor... and who was merely using outrage to cover their grim fascination, perhaps even feeling a little conflicted about Ramsay's treasured pet's eager display. There was no accounting for tastes, and Theon knew all about that.

Steeled for the return journey, Theon set the poker with its weight balanced evenly in his mouth and began to crawl from the kicthen. He was glad he'd had the explanation asked of him before, as he didn't relish the idea of having to stop shake his head at questions, worries or reassurances that he didn't have to do all the awful things Ramsay asked of him, not here, that he wouldn't find out. Surely none of them believed it? They knew – or thought they knew – exactly what it was he was crawling back into as he started up the south staircase on all fours, and they let him go.

The thought of teasing Ramsay about the cake was almost lost in the climb. The poker was surprisingly heavy: the feel of it against his teeth was too cold and jarring, but between his lips it quickly became slick with saliva and threatened to fall, forcing theon to lift his head and clench his jaw uncomfortably. For most of the way it distracted him from the cold of the floor, but his bruised shins were beginning to scrape on the stairs as he tired, the weight of his body fighting against him more with every passing moment.

By the time Theon reached the top of the staircase, Ramsay was standing in the doorway to his chambers, watching him with a wry grin. He held the door open until Theon had crawled past him and into the room and made no secret of admiring the view as he went. The lock on the door clattered as Ramsay closed and bolted it in one motion.

Theon straightened his back, kneeling up with his eyes cast down and the poker still set between his teeth. He held the pose without so much as a tremble as his master paced around him: he knew Ramsay would be able to tell from the set of his elbows, the saliva running from the cotner of his mouth and the grit in his knees that he hadn't cheated or faltered in his task, and that was why he was rewarded with a loving ruffle of his hair as the poker was removed gently from between his teeth. Ramsay ran a hand gently under Theon's chin, lifting his tense jaw, and pressed a measured kiss to the corner of his lips.

In a brief but expansive second's silence, Ramsay did not move a hair.

“... Lemon cakes?”

Theon froze. In that quickest of instants, the reality slipped away from him and the cold kick of fear in his guts was genuine. The involuntary flood of arousal that followed was no less so and not deterred when Ramsay's good-humoured scoff broke the glamor.

“And you didn't even bring me one?”

“How would I have carried it?”

Ramsay cuffed him semi-playfully around the head - in leiu of any reasonable response, Theon guessed, but since when was the bastard of the Dreadfort beholden to rationality? - and walked the couple of steps backwards to sit on the bench to the end of his bed where it was his habit to lace his boots. He beckoned Theon towards him with one curled finger and a broad smile, but when Theon bent towards the poker to pick it up between his teeth, he shook his head at him. “Put that down. Come up here.” He patted his lap, his smile splitting even wider but his eyes narrowing. His voiced dropped into a syrupy, terrifying mocking,. “Is this how trueborn lordlings are allowed to behave? ”

Theon recognised this line of questioning with a shiver. It ended in pain, and fairly often some sort of mess which it was invariably his duty to clean up in whatever inventive and unpleasant manner sprung to Ramsay's horrid little mind. He couldn't help himself.

“Yes?” He watched Ramsay's eyes flare even as his lover struggled not to laugh at him, at his cocksure grin and the quick flick of his tongue. “But I suppose you wouldn't know, being a miller's whelp and then the bastard lord of this shit heap...”

Ramsay slapped him hard across the face.

Theon licked at his teeth, savoured the sting and laughed. “Oh, you'd get bored if I made it too easy.”

Ramsay winked his acknowledgement of that simple truth, and let it slide, dropping the timbre of his voice again. “You've been spoilt rotten, haven't you? Royal at birth... pampered by the Starks...” His face cooled to an ominous blankness as he looked Theon over top to toe, his voice so soft it was barely audible. “I'm sure it's been lovely for you, parading around acting however you please. But you're mine now, _Prince Theon_ , and you'll do as you're told. Or have you forgotten? Perhaps I'm going to have to show you how we do things around here.”

Theon was very well aware of how justice was doled out in the Dreadfort and equally confident that it bore absolutely no resemblance to whyever Ramsay was unfastening Theon's belt and dragging the back of his trousers and smallclothes down his hips, just enough that his buttocks were exposed. He had less than a second of cold to register that before Ramsay flung his arm arund Theon's back and pulled him over his lap.

The first stinging slap landed across Theon's backside before he'd really had a chance to consider what was happening. _Surely not._ He didn't think he'd ever seen anyone past about their eighth name day subjected to this treatment and could much less remember the last time it had been him. But the enticing prickle left by the open-handed slap was a pleasure of its own, and quite absurdly considering the things he'd done or had done to him at Ramsay's hands, something about the position made the familiar, wonderful heat of humiliation creep around Theon's neck and onto his face.

Ramsay was conversational. “How many, do you think?”

Theon faltered. There were no right answers with Ramsay, and evern when he was in such a playful mood it could easily and quickly go awry. Pick too light a sentence and the repercussions would be severe; err on the generous side in an attempt to win favour and you were like to get every stroke of what you asked for. Theon had found generally that the tactic to cause him the least trouble was to defer to Ramsay's decision, appeal to his craving for obedience and hope not earn an extra score for creeping.

“However many you think fit, my lord.”

Ramsay huffed another laugh. “You really are boring when you're good. Fine then, have it your way. I'll stop when I've finished with you.”

The first couple of smacks were distinct. Theon could feel each finger of the handprints left, the shudder of the impact all the way up his body. His chest ached against Ramsay's legs and he struggled slightly to shuffle into a position where he could breath fully, pleased when his wriggling brought him to awareness of the fact that, as usual, he was not the only one enjoying himself.

After a while, when the stinging didn't abate at all between the softer slaps, the gentle pain became a pleasant, percussive throb that he could really adjust to and he settled over Ramsay's lap, his head swimming with the blended pleasure of the gentle pain and the intimacy of it. He had to briefly wonder if Ramsay had ever actually had occasion to do this to anyone before - considering that he had no children in his house and it was hardly something that could be used in an interrogation - and if he hadn't, quite how much fervent daydreaming was belied by the little details, not to mention the quite definite erection he could feel pressing into his chest.

Theon, for his part, wasn't sure when he'd first realised he was a pervert. He blamed the Starks, their tedious and seemingly fucking endless morality; the stir-crazy whiteness of the north; one too many afternoons training with the other notorious Snow bastard. Sometimes he chuckled to himself at how they'd all thought his reluctance to call the yeild during those sound beatings from the best sworsdman north of Volantis was something to do with Iron Islands pride and proving a point. He'd never really been able to help it. Sometimes he imagined how apalled they'd all be if they could see the truth of him now, and that made him hard too.

Admittedly, the indulgences he'd found for his baser proclivities had been scant and usually accidental: the roughousing gone a little too far followed up with feverish dreams and conflicted self indulgence; whores that just couldn't be persuaded to push him as hard as he wanted; the occasional more tense encounter with indescreet northern guardsmen that he'd had to be vocal enough about not enjoying that they'd felt compelled to use force to shut him up, even when his body was quite visibly and insistently telling them otherwise.

And then he'd fallen into the strong and bloodstained hands of Ramsay Bolton, and his sickness had been the saving of him. If there hadn't been something deeply, deeply off-kilter about Theon's appetites before, there certainly was now they were being rewarded on a regular basis, and he very deliberately avoided ever asking how Ramsay had been managing to keep his own desires in check before he'd had him to play with. Which of the stories he'd heard were true and which weren't, Theon had never been absolutely sure, but he knew enough to know he was lucky that Ramsay doted on him, because if he hadn't been the way he was, not only would he have had to endure all this without enjoying it, but it would have been much worse and he doubted he'd have lived to tell the tale. Not that he was ever like to tell this one. Not that anyone would believe him if he did.

The spanking paused for a moment, and in the silence Theon recognised the smell of the linseed oil that Ramsay kept by the bench primarily for seasoning hafts and handles. The bottle was no stranger to being perverted for more recreational ends: Theon tended to be generous with it on the occasions when he fucked Ramsay, delighting in the tight but easy grip of his slick hole and the uncharacteristically abdandoned and shameless noises Ramsay made whilst he laid there and loved it. He was less used to the feel of it himself, as Ramsay was more inclined towards spit and patience, or a total absence of the latter depending mostly on how worked up he was and what Theon could take without bleeding – Ramsay never let him tear, but that wasn't to say it was always a painless experience. The last time he'd trickled the oil onto Theon's body this slowly and started out by just stroking the weathered pad of one finger down the crack of his arse like this, Theon had ended up with Ramsay up to the wrist in him and his face held in a bucket of water. He flinched involuntarily as the memory became physical before it faded.

There was apparently no such hurry for the moment. Ramsay's fingers were gentle and probing even as his other hand wandered around leaving nail marks and spiteful pinches. The first finger breached Theon's body slowly, with enough oil to prevent any discomfort, and slowly sought out the angles that made his breathing hitch and his knees shake. Then it was gone and another harsh slap landed at the curve where his arse met his thighs; another, then Ramsay re-slicked his fingers and pushed two inside, carefully enough that it was still nothing but bliss for Theon as they unhurriedly massaged at him, and so it continued. Not at all hindered by the embarassment of being spread over Ramsay's lap, Theon's body flared and tensed, sparked with pleasure as oiled fingers slid back and forth inside him and retreated to smack him hard across the back of the legs before plunging in again.

He was grateful that he had not in fact been tasked to count strokes: if he'd been called upon at that moment to recall how many he'd had or was owed – and it wouldn't have been the first unfair surprise test Ramsay had sprung on him – he'd have had no chance. Even the hardest slaps to his thighs and arse were only amounting to a pleasant burn, doing nothing to distract him from the ache of his excitement. Eventually, inevitably, Ramsay's hand dipped underneath him to fondle at his determinedly erect cock.

As if he was somehow surprised, Ramsay chuckled.

“You know you're ast least supposed to pretend you're not enjoying it, you sick freak?”

Theon laughed, the game well and truly up for him with Ramsay's hand pressing against him like that. After a momentary indulgent squeeze, he found himself shuffled off Ramsay's lap to kneel on the floor whilst he composed himself and Ramsay wrung a tattered length of cloth through his hands to clean the oil from them. Theon grinned and squared his shoulders, adopting his proper kneel, the thrum of tension through his body prompting him to proposition his master in the best way he knew how.

“I'm sorry.”

Ramsay regarded him seriously for a long moment, his hand coming up to brush a curl of hair from Theon's eyes and tuck it behind his ear.

  
“Do you want me to make you sorry?”

Without breaking the gaze, Theon swallowed thickly and nodded. These were the deicisons that, with hidsight, he usually came to regret - albeit briefly -when he was curled up licking his wounds and wondering what in all the hells compelled him to ask for this. But the heat behind the ice of Ramsay's eyes, the lust and the respect and the intrigue... that was worth it every time.

Ramsay extended two fingers on his right hand and then pointed them towards the floor. Theon responded almost unconsciously to the command, beginning to strip out of his clothes before really thinking about whilst he was doing so. Learning the series of gestures and whistles he was expected to follow had been painful and satisfying, deliciously humiliating when onlookers had realised what he was doing, and ultimately far easier a lesson than he'd imagined. Positive reinforcement behind the bolted doors of Ramsay's quarters had been blissful and abundant; repercussions for missing, ignoring or misinterpreting his cues were swift, public and brutal. He'd learned quickly. He'd loved every second.

It was especially clever, because as soon as Theon's shirt was over his head his eyes snapped back to Ramsay's hands to watch for further instruction, but what he saw was Ramsay thoughtfully pulling his gloves on all mencaing concentration. It made his stomach flip over.

It was astounding how readily the air in the room changed, the silly teasing given away for something so much darker. Still just as strange was the way that even though it made the hairs on the back of Theon's neck stand up, the throb in his cock didn't abate in the slightest, not even when Ramsay wordlessly directed him to stand at his desk and brace his hands upon it; not when he gently kicked his feet apart and only momentarily when Theon heard the high tap of metal on stone that told him Ramsay had retreived the poker he'd so painstakingly brought up from the kitchens.

Dread made itself known as a prickle in the back of Theon's head before launching in a cold shower down his spine. Then came the tension, coiling itself further and tighter around Theon's body the longer nothing happened, and he fought the urge to look over his shoulder. Finally the answering surge of arousal prickled out from his chest, stirring up all the want in him and steeled him to take whatever he was to be given.

Theon heard Ramsay heft the poker in one gloved palm, perfecting his grip. His cool voice was chalked only slightly by excitement.

"Relax your knees. I don't want to break your legs."

Theon just had time to force his stance to go loose as he heard the whistle of the poker being swung through the air. It connected with the back of his thighs before he could properly brace his mind. The pain glittered, searing into his very core, and then the cold metal was gently resting against the inside of his leg, drawing the sensation away. His mind reeled in it, adjusting to the new agony in his legs and the knowledge it was not about to be an isolated flash. The room shook; the first stroke retreated - just barely - to a heady, cold ache and Theon steadied his breathing. Then there were a couple of short, stinging smacks to the inside of his thighs, and then Ramsay' s boot was pressing gently into the back of his left knee - he didn't realise he'd locked his legs straight again - and Ramsays voice was far closer to him than then he expected.

"Shh now. You'll hurt yourself." Ramsay 's lips touched against his ear and found their way down to his neck, barely providing a counterpoint to the pain still shuddering up his body.

In an ominous second of silence, Theon fought to control the shaking and keep his knees bent, and the second proper impact landed just inches above the livid stripe of the first, cushioned a little better by being spread so evenly across both legs at a perfect angle... truly, Ramsay was a master of the craft, and he knew it. The third swing was solid and burning, as if he'd had time to plunge the poker into the fire between strokes. Pain, tinged as always with excitement and promise, sang through Theon's entire body.

"Not going to scream for me today, sweetling?"

Until that point, Theon had somehow managed to channel his anguish into a couple of restrained grunts through his nose. He'd had a lot of practice; he enjoyed his pain, understood how to reason with it; he knew full well that Ramsay was holding back, that the extra blood flow from the earlier spanking had cushioned the worst of it and really, he had been saving screaming for when he needed it... but by the way Ramsay' s measured voice was starting to crack with lust, he'd run out of time.

"Then I'm going to make this one really count."

It would be worth it. Theon knew all that fear in his body was going to find somewhere more interesting to be the moment this was over, and besides, he'd be able to reap the rewards of letting Ramsay work himself into this state: he was an animal when Theon really let him put his back into it, and whilst his own arousal had dwindled now his blood was too busy purpling the backs of his thighs, Theon knew from experience and the thrumming under his skin that it wasn't going to be difficult to coax back. It would be the memory of this moment later that would really set him afire, the fear and the horrible, horrible waiting; the excitement in Ramsay's breathing; the knowledge that he asked for this, and whatever came next.

A _woosh_ that ended in a dull crack, and Theon crumpled to the floor, wailing fit to raise the crypts beneath the castle. The edges of his vision flickered and white spots spread out to meet the black round the edges. His knees had bent to absorb the hit but surely his legs were broken, and the skin must have burst like an overripe apple for the blood he could feel spreading wet and cool across the backs of his legs. Theon dropped his forehead to the flagstone, struggling not to throw up until the worst flares of the pain ebbed to a just -about -bearable throb where it met the cold of the blood...

No, too cold to be blood, and when he turned his head of course it was Ramsay gently cupping a handful of snow hastily gathered from the window ledge against the worst of the damage, hungrily staring at the mess he'd made and panting raggedly through his mouth.

It probably should have worried Theon that is was aways the times when it got out of hand that Ramsay really enjoyed, but it was precisely seeing him lose that cold control, watching someone as composed as Ramsay utterly given over to his most honest lusts, that made him so keen take it in the first place.

Ramsay manhandled him onto all fours but didn't correct him when Theon flopped forwards onto his elbows, the pain in his legs sapping all the strength he would have used to hold himself up. It didn't matter: Ramsay had the access he needed to shuffle between Theon's knees whilst wrestling his way out of his clothes. He spat precisely into the cleft of Theons backside and dragged the head of his cock through it to push quickly and decisively into him.

Theon flinched and grunted but otherwise made no complaint. He had expected pain, but the spit met quickly with the oil still lingering inside his body, and it wasn't so long since Ramsay's fingers had worked his muscles open so lovingly, so they didn't fight Ramsay then as he shifted, rolled his hips and chose his pace. What did hurt was the way Ramsay's thrusts brought his thighs into contact with the flesh he'd just been beating on the back of Theon's legs: it was a sharp and particular agony and he let Ramsay hear it, whimpering and yelping with every smack of Ramsay's body against his fresh wounds.

The sight of the blood, or the noises Theon was making, or else a combination of the two was obviously getting to Ramsay: his hurried pounding gave him away. This was not the torturous pace he used when he was trying to work Theon into desperare compliance and or make him come undone. When Theon risked a look back over his shoulder, Ramsay's eyes were glazed, his pupils blown, his face slack with focus as he pulled Theon's body backwards onto his cock.

Theon dropped his head back down and didn't bother to surpress the dark grin. This wasn't for him, but it was about him; because of him. Because of the way he offered his body, took his punishment and liked it. Because of the things he let Ramsay do.

Sweat started to prickle at the top of Theon's back as the hands on his hips slipped and faltered, grabbing for a better grip. He caught the little crests of pleasure as Ramsay bumped against that spot inside him, even as his cheekbone was ground into the flagstone. He could feel that bruising too, could already feel the stares that would follow him tomorrow, the damage to his face and collarbones from Ramsay rutting him into the floor, one hand pressed into the middle of Theon's back to hold him down whilst he fucked him.

From where Theon was desperately trying to prop himself from sliding forwards, it was all too quick and artless to be fully enjoyable but it felt like victory. Ramsay seemed to have lost all awareness of the body he was fucking into, else he didn't care or was doing it on purpose, his grip too tight, his motions too sharp and too shallow to allow any real pleasure to flood Theon's body and fully flush the discomfort from his senses. The pain picked up a notch as Ramsay peaked, lost his rhythm completely and dug his nails in as he spent himself inside Theon's body with a drawn out sigh.

After his swift and uncomfortable withdrawal, Ramsay didn't take his weight from the hand between Theon's shoulders: only moved it down to press into the small of his back, forcing him to curve his bottom up even further.

Dry fingers trailed across Theon's hole, dipped to swipe up the come that was dripping down from it and softly, just gently tuck it back inside his body. Theon flinched instinctively but welcomed the touches, the fact it wasn't all over yet. Ramsay twisted his fingers into him, lubricated with his own come, and the less challenging fullness was pure bliss that made Theon's battered legs tremble and caused surges of hot sparks to go rippling up his back. Then Ramsay's fingers were gone, taken carefully to allow as little of his seed to spill out as possible, and replaced with the flat of his tongue, licking softly and patiently. Theon heard himself keening before the sensation really reached his head, quickly losing himself in the ephmemeral touch of Ramsay's tonuge, the infinite softness of it, the lewd wetness he could feel dribbling down his most sensitive skin.

Ramsay's hand reached underneath to check on Theon's prick, giving it a couple of laguid, blistering strokes. Theon was so ready he was dripping, and he could feel more than hear Ramsay laughing against his openness, the heat of his breath another new touch on the abused and sensative skin. Ramsay pressed another open kiss to Theon's body, pushing his tongue inside, lapping softly at the rim; Theon's cock twitched, his hips jerked forwards uselessly and he groaned loudly into the crook of his arm.

Ramsay gave him a final open-handed smack to the arse and stood up.

“To bed with you.”

Obedience unquestioning, Theon stood – slowly, so gingerly, unable to control the wince at straightening his legs – and began to limp towards the bed.

“Uh, where do you think you're going? Your bed, not mine. You think I want you in my furs in that state? Leaking all over the place?” And Ramsay gestured only with the turn of his gaze towards the small fireplace, and the bundle of discarded clothing that formed a makeshift bed for Theon there.

Rounded, like a dog's nest of rags and straw, 'Reek's bed' appeared to be little more than spare cloth, worn down by exhausted sleep, just enough when considered in its location on the hearth-warmed stone to keep him from freezing. In actual fact, each garment in the pile had been personally chosen by Ramsay because he loved it: a favourite cloak that had been surpassed by a gift from his father that he had to be seen to favour; a tunic worn so soft from years of wear under boiled leather that in places the light could be shone right through it. On the rare occasions Theon actually slept there - when the mood was just right for him to keep up his submission to continue into the following day, or when company was closeby - he usually found some new item had been introduced as a reward for him, fresh with the smell of Ramsay. Another time, the sweat on the less familiar undershirt he found as he crawled into it would have been a comfort to him, but, stimulated as he was, it only served to rile him up further.

Theon squirmed, waiting for Ramsay to look back at him from where he was standing stripping out of his clothes and folding them onto the bench, only the slight shaking of his hands giving the lie to his composure. Once he caught his eye, Theon gave a pointed glance down his bare body to his uncomfortably hard cock and then looked up with hopeful eyes.

Ramsay mutely shook his head, smiled and raised his eyebrows in challenge, and Theon collapsed back into the bedding with a long groan. There was a time when Ramsay would have bound his hands... would have needed to, to ensure his compliance. Sometimes he'd even hung the bonds over a hook in the wall and left Theon to sleep – or try to – upright, his weight hanging on the restraints once Ramsay had finally got the height of the hook just right not to permit him to stand on tiptoe and free himself.

There was no such thing to stop him. He could have got himself off with impunity and called the game off if Ramsay tried to punish him for it, with no consequences: it was well within their terms. He could have slept in the bed and woken up to Ramsay curled around him, perhaps a sleepy, blissful apology and a loving, urgent hand to even the score. In all probability he'd have been able to finish the job without Ramsay even catching him and had it both ways: Ramsay usually slept like the dead after a fuck quite like that and was highly unlikely to be woken by the mere moments of frenzied but minimal effort it would have taken him to come...

But Theon had learned better than to renege on such challenges. If Ramsay wanted him to spend the night feverish and wake up even more desperate to please him, to serve him, then that meant he had ideas, and Theon needed no further encouragement than that. With some effort, he managed to to curl himself up, savouring the hardnness of the floor against his aching body and tucking his hands under his arms to keep them from straying. Shaking with want and determination, not to mention the bleeding under the skin of his thighs, he laid there in his makeshift bed of Ramsay's retired cloaks and let the warring throb of his bruises and his hardness lull him to sleep.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ... and yes they are all and will all be named after Alkaline trio songs because there's something ridiculously fitting about that! Feedback is very much welcome, including what you'd like to see. Thank you for reading!


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